


The Great Twenty-First Century Shopping Expedition

by sahiya



Series: The Countess and the Doctor [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cordelia needs proper clothes and shoes for traveling with the Doctor. Martha is happy to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Twenty-First Century Shopping Expedition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [genebec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genebec/gifts).



> This was started in 2008 (no, seriously - I looked it up) and probably would've never been finished, except that my awesome beta Fuzzyboo requested it for her stocking stuffer. Happy Holidays, my dear! Thank you for all the betas.

_A wardrobe with anything you could possibly want_ , the Doctor had promised. Cordelia rifled through her twelfth or thirteenth enormous rack of clothes and wondered if she was being too picky or if the Doctor's idea of "anything" was a bit narrow. It was true that there were clothes from just about any period in human history she might want, and from a startling array of planets. But most would have been on the snug side for her even in her Survey days. Whoever the Doctor had traveled with in the past had been rather thinner and shorter than Cordelia.

Plus . . . none of it was _her_.

Not that she was precisely sure what was her anymore. She kicked at her skirts and eyed the small, dissatisfying pile of clothing she'd selected so far - a pair of trousers that had probably been cut for a man and a number of very neutral shirts and blouses. Well, London was a city. It must have shopping.

She stepped out of the skirts and into trousers for the first time in - goodness, probably thirty years. Long enough at least for them to feel strange, as strange as skirts had felt at first. She tugged at them a bit, bringing the waistline an inch lower. She buttoned them and looped a belt around herself before shrugging into a white shirt. After a moment she decided to keep her brown-and-silver-stitched Barrayaran bolero. It went rather nicely with the trousers.

"Bit of a magpie effort, but it could be worse," she told her reflection in the full-length mirror, and went to find the Doctor.

She thought they must have landed already, or at least the TARDIS had stopped tossing her into random racks of clothing a full half hour earlier. She'd figured that if the Doctor got impatient, he knew where to find her. She'd expected him to be chomping at the proverbial bit, in fact. But she realized, as she approached the console room, why he hadn't been. There were two voices: one belonging to the Doctor and one to a woman - Martha, it must be.

Cordelia paused just around the corner and recalled the Doctor's unrepentant shrug at being caught eavesdropping on her conversation with Miles. Turnabout was fair play, after all. And, as he'd said himself, knowing what people were saying about you was generally a good idea.

"What are you doing here, though?" Martha was asking, sounding, to Cordelia's ear, a mix of happy, worried, and suspicious. "Not that you need a reason, but you being you, I was pretty sure I'd have to ring to say we were being invaded."

"I can't just pop by for a visit?"

Martha made a noise Cordelia couldn't quite parse. "You say that and I get the urge to lay in bottled water. Seriously, what's going on?"

"Actually," the Doctor said, "this is a purely social call. So far, at least, and I feel I should knock on some wood except there isn't any in the TARDIS. There's someone I want you to meet - you'll love her, she's brilliant like you. Well, not _just_ like you, but you know what I mean."

"I really don't."

Martha sounded a little . . . strained. Not that the Doctor would notice. Cordelia mentally added "emotionally dense" to the list of ways he was like Miles, and wondered if this might be why he'd chosen her when it was obvious that most of his companions had been much younger. He was just the sort of brilliant, tragic, lonely man young women would find irresistible, and he did cut quite a dashing figure in those brown pinstripes.

"Well, I mean," the Doctor went on, manically oblivious, "she's quite a bit older than you - fifty years for _me_ is nothing, but for humans -"

And that was Cordelia's cue. "Thank you, Doctor," she broke in dryly as she stepped around the corner and held out her hand for Martha to shake. "Cordelia Vorkosigan."

Martha revealed herself to be every bit as lovely as Cordelia had expected: smooth brown skin, wide, dark eyes that sparked with intelligence, and curves in all the right places. "Martha Jones. Don't mind him - he's that charming to everyone. We love him anyway. Most of the time."

"Oi -"

"And I have to say, you don't look seventy-five."

Cordelia smiled at her. "Where - when, rather - I come from, that's comfortably middle aged."

“When is that?” Martha asked, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“The 31st century,” Cordelia said. 

"I wasn't calling you old," the Doctor interjected, frowning. "Really, humans are so sensitive. I was just saying that you're older than Martha. Which you are."

"Yes, but you needn't remind her," Martha said with a roll of her eyes.

"It's fine, Doctor," Cordelia assured him before he could retort and - she was sure - dig himself an even deeper hole. "There are worse things to be than old."

"Ah," the Doctor said, rocking back on his heels and granting her a very faint smile. "Very true. Well then!" He clapped his hands and bounded around the console. "Are you ready? London awaits! What do you want to see first? The Tower? The Globe? A museum? Madame Tussaud's?"

"Actually, I was thinking I might do some shopping."

The Doctor froze mid-bound and blinked at her. "You just spent three hours in the TARDIS wardrobe!"

Cordelia crossed her arms over her chest. "And while it might have everything you could want, the selection of women's apparel is somewhat limited."

"That's true," Martha put in sympathetically. "Plus, it's always nice to have your own things. What happened, did he blow up your flat, too? Not that you wouldn't have had a good reason," she added hastily to the Doctor.

"I did not blow up her flat!"

"No, no, nothing like that," Cordelia said, smiling at the Doctor's ruffled annoyance. "None of my clothes were very appropriate for this sort of travel. And you're right. I want my own things, not clothes on permanent loan from the TARDIS."

"Well, lucky for you, you've come to the right place." Martha put her hands on her hips and surveyed the Doctor and Cordelia. "Tell you what, I’ve just ordered some curry. I’ll ring them and have them add a lamb vindaloo for the Doctor and a - what kind of curry do you like?"

Cordelia shrugged. "No idea."

"Hmm. Do you eat meat?"

Cordelia controlled the urge to grimace. Earth in the twenty-first century - there wouldn't be any other option. Vat protein didn't exist. Worse yet, the meat they did have would be a horror - pumped full of hormones and chemicals. She shuddered. "No," she said firmly.

"Yeah, good luck with that." Martha turned to lead them out of the TARDIS. "I was giving the no meat thing a try myself when I took up with him - it lasted three planets."

"There aren't many things that are truly universal," the Doctor said with an apologetic shrug as they left the TARDIS and found themselves in a comfortably appointed living room - Martha’s, Cordelia assumed. "But roasting bits of dead lower beings over open flame comes very close."

"Lovely," Cordelia sighed. "I'll adjust, I expect. But for now . . ."

"Not a problem. I'll order you something veggie.” She paused, gesturing around. “So, this is the new flat. Sorry it's a bit cramped. And, uh, cluttered. _Someone_ didn't call ahead." She darted about the living room, picking up magazines - real glossy magazines, Cordelia thought with some amazement; she'd seen some preserved once, in a museum on Beta - and dropping them into piles, shoving a pair of black boots out of the way, and finally straightening the sofa cushions. "There. I'll just ring the curry place and put the kettle on." She disappeared into the kitchen.

Cordelia waited till she'd left, then nudged the Doctor in the ribs. "You were right. I do like her. Sensible woman."

"Splendid," the Doctor said dryly. "I'm already regretting this."

***

The curry smelled wonderful as they laid it all out on the small table in Martha's kitchen, rich and redolent of spices, and it reminded Cordelia that it had been at least five or six hours since she'd last eaten. Well, six hours or a thousand years, depending on how one looked at it. Not even knowing that the sauce-smothered lumps on the Doctor's plate were chunks of real lamb made it less appetizing. Her own was revealed to be spinach with hunks of cheese, served with rice and a soft, white flatbread. She tore into the bread and decided not to think about where it had all come from.

Martha scooped rice onto her plate. "If I’d known you were coming, Doctor, I’d have told Tom to come round for lunch. I’ve been hoping for the chance to introduce you. Tom’s my boyfriend,” she added to Cordelia. “Well, fiancé, actually." She held up her left hand and Cordelia caught a brief flash of diamond as she waggled her fingers.

"Congratulations," Cordelia said, smiling.

"You're invited, of course," Martha told him. "Though I hope you won't be offended if I ask you not to wear the tux."

The Doctor's smile dimmed ever so slightly, even as he replied easily, "It's tradition to give the bride whatever she wants, isn't it?"

"God, could you let my mother in on that?" Martha shook her head and piled a bit of sauce-covered chicken on a piece of the flatbread. "It's been a nightmare and the bloody thing's still six months away. Seriously, eloping is sounding better and better, except they'd all kill me."

"It worked for me," Cordelia said. Aral's father had argued, briefly, but as it was Aral's second marriage he hadn't fought too terribly hard. Neither she nor Aral had been prepared for the ordeal Lord Vorkosigan's wedding would have entailed, especially considering the curiosity that had raged around her own arrival at the time. A tiny legal ceremony with Piotr as the only witness . . . it hadn't been romantic, but she hadn't cared.

Martha sighed wistfully. "If only. So you’re married, then?”

“Widowed, now,” Cordelia said.

“Oh God,” Martha said, eyes widening. “I’m so sorry.”

Cordelia shook her head, pressing her lips together. "The problem, of course, with someone being your everything for forty years is that once that person is gone, you're left a bit . . . adrift. I was lucky, though," she added lightly. "Tell me, does the Doctor always make such a grand entrance?"

"Oh, that wasn't grand," the Doctor objected, waving his fork. "I didn't even save your life."

 _Don't be so sure of that_ , Cordelia thought. She might have wasted years if he hadn't shown up when he had. Or, worse, never found her way on at all and resigned herself to ending her days very comfortably as the madwoman in the attic of Vorkosigan House. It could have happened. It could have happened all too easily, but it hadn't and now she was here. It was neither her time nor her place, but she was almost certain it was where she should be.

At last the curry had been decimated and the table was cleared of all dead animal flesh. The Doctor prowled around the edges of the room, inspecting Martha’s bookshelves and DVD collection. Cordelia sat on the sofa and struggled with a sensation of surreality. The best way to handle all of this, she thought, was simply not to think about it too hard. 

“All right, then,” Martha said, emerging from the kitchen. “Are you ready, Cordelia?”

Cordelia frowned. “Ready?” 

“To go shopping. You can entertain yourself, can’t you, Doctor?”

“I’m not invited?” the Doctor said with a frown. 

“Definitely not,” Martha said firmly. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she added, when the Doctor turned pitiful eyes on her. “You’d be bored and insufferable in ten seconds. Go tinker in the TARDIS. Cordelia? Do you have what you need?”

"I guess so,” Cordelia said. “Except . . . money?"

"Oh, that's easy," the Doctor said, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "I'll just sonic a Hole in the Wall for you."

Martha made a face. "I hate when you do that. Never mind, I'll put it on my card and add it to the Doctor's tab."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "I have a tab?"

Martha grinned. "Do you ever."

"Dare I ask -"

"Better not. Don't worry, we'll settle up before you leave. C'mon, Cordelia," Martha said, grabbing her by the hand. "21st century capitalism awaits."

***

The London Underground was slow, dark, stifling, and marvelous. Cordelia clung to the overhead railing with one hand and tried not to stare too unabashedly at her fellow passengers. Blue jeans - she could hardly believe she was seeing people in blue jeans, and not robotic replicas in a museum. There had been a brief blue jean trend among young Betans with more money than sense when Cordelia was in her twenties, but it had fizzled quickly; denim was too heavy for Beta Colony's climate. But even those who had worn them had always looked faintly embarrassed, as though they couldn't quite believe their own daring - like actors in a period piece.

These people, dressed in blue jeans and shirts with strange slogans and pictures that made no sense, wore them as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And, of course, it was to them. The twentieth and twenty-first century had been the height of humanity's blue jeans obsession. By the twenty-second century, it'd started to give way, but in this place and this time almost everyone had a pair in their closet.

Business suits, on the other hand, hadn't changed much at all. A man reading a newspaper across from Cordelia wore a grey suit that was almost identical in cut to the ones Miles favored. Cordelia didn't know which was stranger: the things that had changed or those that hadn't.

"You all right?" Martha asked as they rode a long, slow escalator up towards the surface.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine, I'm just taking it all in." The endless parade of people was only the beginning; the walls of the escalator were lined with bright posters for concerts and museums and theater performances. Cordelia wondered if the Doctor would take her to one of them if she asked. Probably, though he might talk at her the whole time till she wished he hadn't. "It's all so different. And also not."

Martha grinned. "My first trip with the Doctor - which was supposed to be my last trip - was back to Shakespeare's time. It was really weird - people are just people in the end, but it's hard to remember that. I guess that must be what this is like for you."

"A bit," Cordelia admitted. Conversation became momentarily impossible as she followed Martha through the turnstile and out into the gray light of London at midday. She blinked. "Where are we?"

"Covent Garden." Martha caught hold of Cordelia's sleeve and tugged. "This way."

Cordelia stayed close on Martha's heels. The press of people was much worse here than it had been on the street near Martha's apartment. It had been, quite literally, years since she'd been allowed out in a crowd like this, and Barrayar was not nearly as crowded as Earth at this point in its history. She could perhaps compare it to a Barrayaran festival, but on those occasions she'd almost inevitably been trapped with Aral at an event at the Imperial Residence, not out on the street among people. She craned her neck to get a better look around; music, drifting over the heads of the crowd on a brisk fall breeze, was coming from somewhere to her left, inside what looked like an indoor market. "I hope you know where you're going," she told Martha.

"'Course I do." Martha paused, turning to eye Cordelia up and down. “Let’s see, you’ll want clothes you can move in and a good pair of running shoes. The running shoes are key. This way.”

Cordelia let Martha lead her by the hand through the frothing, teeming mass of humanity to a shop on the edge of it all. It was quieter inside; Cordelia hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath till she let it out in relief. 

It had been a long time since Cordelia had shopped somewhere like this. Alys Vorpatril had a personal stylist whom she lent to Cordelia on occasion. Countess Vorkosigan, Alys was fond of telling her, did _not_ buy off the rack. In fact, the rack didn’t exist at all for her. If she needed new clothes, a polite, sharply dressed young woman came to Vorkosigan House and consulted with her, and three days later the clothes simply appeared. 

But now she was faced with rows and rows of clothes - shirts and dresses and the legendary blue jeans. Martha gravitated toward those immediately, while Cordelia found herself picking carefully through a rack of blouses. The texture of the fabrics was different from what she was used to; this was time when synthetics were heavily favored. Still, she picked out a few things she thought looked intriguing but not too outlandish: a black, high-collared sweater, a green blouse, and a sensible white button down shirt that reminded her of men’s clothing on Barrayar. 

“Good choices,” Martha remarked, wandering over with an armful of jeans. She dumped them on top of the rack and then held a pair up against Cordelia’s hips. She made a noise and swapped it for another pair, then nodded. “Try these on.” She steered Cordelia toward the back of the store, where a dressing room with a mirror on the door awaited her. “I’ll see if I can find you some khakis. You’ll want things that are durable.”

“Right,” Cordelia said, a little uncertainly, and pulled the door shut behind her.

By the third pair of jeans, Cordelia had remembered how annoying this sort of shopping was. Her clothes on Barrayar were made for her; they were never too tight in the waist, and anything that needed to be adjusted would be taken care of before it ever reached her. She never had to stand in a dressing room in front of a mirror under too-bright lights and be reminded of every slight physical imperfection. And as for the jeans, for the life of her she couldn’t understand how trousers that were so hard to fit had ended up so popular for so long. 

She gave up on jeans in the end. Martha returned with several pairs of khakis that made Cordelia nostalgic for her old Survey uniform. Those were less form-fitting and more comfortable in the waist than the jeans had been. She bought several pairs of the same kind - or rather, Martha bought them for her, along with a few shirts. Those were much easier; she followed Martha’s advice and stayed away from anything too delicate or restrictive. 

They left the store laden down with two or three shopping bags, and Martha set off with purpose. Cordelia lengthened her stride to keep up and decided that now was as good a time as any to ask some of the questions that had been weighing on her mind ever since the Doctor had mentioned he wanted to introduce them. 

"So,” she said. “You know the Doctor much better than I do. I know I’m in for lots of running. What else?"

Martha glanced at her and smiled, a little bittersweetly, if Cordelia wasn’t mistaken. "You have no idea. He's . . . I don't know how to describe him. I'm mean, you've met him, you know how wonderful he is or you wouldn't have agreed to go with him. But he's also, well, a bit strange.”

"He's an alien."

"I know, but - well, maybe it's different for you, but when he first found me, we'd only just started to get used to the idea of aliens. And he looks so human." She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face Cordelia. The sea of people parted around them. “He likes to think he can empathize with us, you know, but I don't think he can, really. These things would happen to us and he always said he was all right. It never seemed to occur to him that I might not be." 

“I see,” Cordelia said. Martha led off again, and she followed just behind, too deep in thought to quite keep up. Martha paused outside a shoe store, frowned thoughtfully, then nodded to herself and went inside. A clerk approached, asking if she could help them, and Martha told her they were looking for a good pair of running shoes for Cordelia. The clerk measured Cordelia’s foot and then went into the back to fetch back a few different options. 

Cordelia and Martha sat in a pair of comfortable chairs and waited. The shoe store was less busy than the clothing store had been. Cordelia hesitated, but her Betan upbringing wouldn’t let her stay silent. “ _Are_ you all right?” she asked. 

Martha didn’t immediately answer. “I’m getting there,” she said at last. “And I think - well, from what I know about the others, I had an unusually rough time of it.”

Cordelia frowned. “In what way?”

Martha waved her hand. "Oh, you know. Stuck working as a maid in 1913 with a human Doctor who hadn't the faintest clue who he really was, then trapped in 1969 without the TARDIS. Walking the Earth for a year so the Doctor could do his best impersonation of Tinkerbell and undo a paradox to erase a year of domination by an evil Time Lord. So, the usual."

Cordelia stared. "Goodness," she said at last.

Martha sighed. "I'm not being fair. There were good days, too. Lots of them. In the end they got a bit outnumbered, but I wouldn't be who I am without it."

"I see." An ambiguous statement, that. There were many events in Cordelia's life she wouldn't be the same without, but that wasn't always a good thing. Her mother had been fond of telling her that what didn't kill her would inevitably make her stronger, but that wasn't always true. Sometimes you just got flattened. Or hardened. 

The shoe clerk returned then with several boxes. Cordelia tried a few different pairs of shoes on, wandering the store to test them out. It was hard to tell how comfortable they really were in just a minute or two, but they were probably better than the shoes she’d left Barrayar with. Countess Vorkosigan hadn’t done much running. 

She walked out with a pair of white running shoes in a box. “What else do you need?” Martha asked. “Personal items?”

It took Cordelia a moment to realize she was talking about underwear. She supposed she did, at that. “Yes. But I could use a break first.”

Martha nodded. “Good idea. Cup of tea?”

“Perfect,” Cordelia said, and followed Martha across the street to a café. Martha sat her down at a table in the window, and then went up to the counter to order. She came back with two glass mugs of hot, steaming water, a tea bag in each one. 

“Here you go,” she said, seating herself across from Cordelia. 

“Thank you,” Cordelia said, blowing across the surface of the tea to cool it. 

Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then Martha drew a sharp breath and said, “I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just, I would’ve wanted to go in with my eyes wide open, if I could have done.”

Cordelia nodded. “I appreciate it. So the companion before you, she didn’t she do this for you? Take you out, tell you what to expect?"

Martha shook her head. "No, Rose was gone by the time the Doctor picked me up. He lost her at the Battle of Canary Wharf - I'm sure you know that one if you know your history." Cordelia nodded. "Well, she didn't die, she just got sucked through to another universe. The Doctor can't get to her and she can't get back."

 _She didn't die._ Perhaps not, but Cordelia wasn't sure she'd ever heard a more accurate description of death, or at least her own, admittedly theistic interpretation. After all, wasn't that more or less what she believed had happened to Aral? He'd gone on to _elsewhere_ , wherever that was, while she'd stayed behind. She couldn't cross over, and he couldn't cross back. "That's terrible," she said at last.

Martha nodded. "It was, I imagine. He's still not over it." She sighed. "The Rose landmines. I don't miss tripping over those."

Cordelia could certainly believe that. “I’ll keep an eye out.” She frowned. “Do you regret it, then?”

Martha looked down at her tea. “I don’t know,” she said. “It made me stronger, but it changed me in other ways, too, and I’m not always sure - but that’s not why I stopped traveling with him.”

“Why did you?” Cordelia asked. 

Martha shrugged. “He didn’t see _me_. He never really saw me.”

“He sees you now,” Cordelia pointed out. 

The corner of Martha’s mouth dipped. “Maybe.” She glanced at her watch. “Come on, we should get going. I have to work in a few hours.”

They made one more stop, at a place that allowed Cordelia to purchase a few personal items that were less restrictive than the ones that Barrayar had decided were appropriate for its high-born women. Then they headed back to Martha’s house, via cab rather than the underground. And not an autocab, either, Cordelia realized as soon as they got in. Martha made easy small talk with the cabbie as they inched toward her house. 

The TARDIS was exactly where she’d left it, in one corner of Martha’s living room. The Doctor, however, was sitting in the middle of the floor with bits and pieces of electronics strewn around him. “Oh, hullo!” he said brightly as they entered. “I didn’t think you’d be back for hours yet.”

Martha stopped dead, staring at the mess on her floor. “Obviously,” she said. “Doctor, is that my microwave? _Was_ that my microwave?”

“Is, _is_ your microwave!” the Doctor insisted. “It’s just a bit - disassembled.”

Martha pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to smile. “Would you mind reassembling it before you leave?” 

“Well, of _course_ I was going to reassemble it - though if you’d rather, I think I have a 45th century version in the TARDIS -”

“No, thank you,” Martha said. “Just please make sure my microwave works before you leave, all right? I do use it on occasion.”

“All right, have it your way,” the Doctor said, waving his sonic screwdriver. “But by the time I’m done with it, I’ll have you know it’ll put out at least 80% less radiation. No need to thank me! Though you might be careful the first couple times you try and use it - not sure what it’ll do to the cook time.”

Martha shook her head. “This,” she said to Cordelia. “ _This_ is what you have to look forward to.” She paused, watching the Doctor, who’s now lying on his stomach and carefully sonicing a bit of wiring in the back of the microwave.

“You know what you asked me before?” Martha said, then. “In the café.”

Cordelia had to think about it for a second, then remembered: _Do you regret it?_ “Yes,” she said. 

“No,” Martha said, turning to look at her. “Not for one minute. And you won’t either.”

“What’s that?” the Doctor asked. 

“Nothing. I need to get ready for work.” Martha flashed Cordelia a smile and disappeared into her bedroom. 

Cordelia seated herself on the sofa, pulling her legs up beneath her. “Did you find what you were looking for?” the Doctor asked, head still buried in the microwave. 

“Yes,” Cordelia said, and smiled to herself, glancing toward the closed bedroom door. “I believe I did.”

_Fin._


End file.
